D3.12: Ploutos Consolidated SCBMI WP3 – Sustainable Collaborative Business Model Innovation

The Ploutos project revolves around a number of digitization innovation initiatives focused on
sustainability. In order to shape and maximize the probability of value creation and capture the
leveraging of these innovations, the latter are are supported through sustainable collaborative
business models (SCBMs). SCBMs emphasize collaboration and mutual value creation and capture
between value chain stakeholders to achieve long-term sustainable impact. To support the
development of these business models, an innovative and participative approach for supporting
sustainable collaborative business model innovation (SCBMI), as defined in D3.2: Ploutos SCBMI
approach - final version, has been developed. This approach has been developed and validated
through interactions with the innovation initiatives (the Sustainable Innovation Pilots in Ploutos).
Interactions with the innovation initiatives focused on the design of new business models or focused
improving upon current business models for the innovation initiatives to achieve sustainable impact.
They considered the role of technological, behaviour and business innovation in developing new
business models, understanding how the joint consideration of these pillars contributes towards
business performance. It also focused on how these business models can help to solve importance
challenges such as rebalancing agri-food supply chains or stimulate the proliferation of digital
innovation to tackle societal or environmental challenges. Through these interactions, important
learnings, insights and best practices were derived which are valuable to consider when pursuing
SCBMI or can help to support its application in practice.
In this report, we consolidate these findings, learnings and insights generated through Ploutos on the
application and use of sustainable collaborative business model innovation in the agriculture domain.
Specifically, we provide a user manual on the value and application of SCBMI in practice to address
challenges in the agri-food domain. It covers an explanation of the structure for the SCBMI approach
as well as important considerations when applying it in practice. It can be considered as a set of
‘Frequently Asked Questions’ (FAQs) to help stakeholders working on establishing sustainable impact
through digital innovation to get started.
In addition to the SCBMI approach, this report also lists the tools available for SCBMI. The tools
available can be divided into three categories, namely supporting the exploration, design, and
exploitation of SCBMs. Accordingly, the tools can be used to inspire SCBMI, can help to structure or
analyse the configurations of SCBMs or can be used to identify further opportunities for value creation
and capture as part of SCBMI. Per tool, we provide helpful guidance on why and when the tool can be
used.
Lastly, through the work with the innovation initiatives, we also identified important learnings from
practice which can help to further support SCBMI. Specifically, we highlight how innovation initiatives
have employed different governance structures to support the adoption of digital innovations,
overcoming behavioural and financial barriers. Similarly, we indicate that farmers can employ
different value propositions or business models to create and reap the benefits of parallel value
streams. Moreover, we stress the importance of trial-and-error when working with SCBMI and as well
as that collaboration is key in overcoming previously considered wicked problems.